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NHS patients waiting longer for routine operations under coalition

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Delays faced by patients for common forms of surgery such as hernia repairs and cataract removals have risen sharply under the coalition, despite David Cameron's pledge to keep waiting times low, NHS statistics reveal.

Patients are now waiting on average 15 days longer than in 2010 to have their tonsils taken out, 14 days more to have adenoids removed and 10 days longer for a hernia procedure.The findings, in a Patients Association report published on Friday based on official NHS performance data, come weeks after growing unease in Downing Street about lengthening delays for treatment led to the Department of Health (DoH) giving the NHS an extra £400m to tackle the problem.

Information supplied by more than half of England's 162 acute hospital trusts also shows that patients are facing a postcode lottery in how long they have to wait before they get treated, with delays of as long as 215 days in some places. That is far more than the maximum 18 weeks or 126 days that patients are supposed to be treated within under the NHS constitution after being referred by their GP under the Referral to Treatment scheme.

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, branded the delays unacceptable. They mean that patients are suffering in discomfort or pain and may face immobility and social isolation when they have to wait, she said. Some are becoming so frustrated at not getting treated promptly that they are being forced to pay private health providers to relieve their symptoms.

"While we appreciate the financial squeeze in the NHS, it cannot be at the cost of patient care and should not mean that patients are suffering, as these figures suggest that they are. It's unfair and unjust for patients to have to suffer the consequences of unnecessary delays after they have been referred," added Murphy, a former nurse and manager in the NHS.

Labour seized on the worsening delays as evidence that the prime minister had broken his pledge in 2011 to ensure waiting times, which he said he knew "really mattered", remained low.

Coalition anxiety over NHS waiting times was compounded on Thursday when the House of Commons library contradicted Cameron's claim at prime minister's questions on Wednesday that average A&E waiting times had fallen from 77 minutes under Labour to 30 minutes under the coalition. That was based on a "simplistic" reading of the data and was not correct, the library said in a blogpost.

However, on Thursday night the research was removed by the House of Commons library because of questions over its impartiality. A statement on its website read: ""The blog post 'Have A&E waiting times fallen?' has been removed by the House of Commons Library as it does not meet our expected standards of impartiality. A revised post will be uploaded as soon as possible"

The total number of patients waiting to be treated topped three million last month for the first time in six years. Average waiting times for tonsillectomies have risen from 63.5 days in 2010 to 78.6 days in 2013, for adenoid removals from 65.3 to 79.2 days and for hernia repairs from 70.4 to 80.7 days, according to data supplied by the 92 trusts.

Similarly, average waits for knee replacements have increased to 95 days (up six days since 2010), for cataract removals from 63.7 to 68.8 days – five days longer – while hip replacements are typically taking 91.2 days to happen – 3.7 days more than in 2010. It is unclear how many patients are now affected by unusually long delays. But around a million patients a year have one of the ten procedures. For example, 337,000 alone have cataract surgery.

The longest delays revealed by the hospitals' responses were 215 days at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals in north London for knee replacements, 192 days for surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome at West Hertfordshire hospitals and 191 days for hip replacements, also at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals. By contrast other hospitals were performing the same three procedures on average in 50, three and 47 days respectively.

Rob Webster, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: "Delays can be distressing for patients and commissioners and providers of NHS-funded care will be acutely aware of this and be doing all they can to deliver timely waits. The whole system is under more pressure than ever, and what we are seeing in this report is that this can have a major impact on elective care, as measured through performance targets like 18 weeks," he added.

A DoH spokesman said: "Under this government, the NHS has kept waiting times low and ended the scandal of thousands of people having to wait more than a year for treatment.

"With an ageing population pressure on the NHS is inevitably increasing so we are overseeing a one-off programme to tackle the sharp rise in demand for elective surgery."

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